Onions: Are sensitive to temperature and day length, are photothermoperiodic! Whew! They start bulbing only after enough daylight for a certain number of days. To avoid bolting, in SoCal we need to plant seeds of short day onions in fall, or intermediate varieties in late winter. Most sets are long-day types and won’t work. Plant Grano, Granex, & Crystal Wax seeds in the ground Nov 1 to Nov 10, or bare root in January. Granex stores a little better, all of them are sweet like Vidalia and Maui. If you miss this window, plant intermediate onions in Feb. Onion seeds sprout very easily!

Garlic LOVERS, if your garlic plants haven’t been as vibrant and robust as these in the image, really amend your soil, put them in full sun, feed them! Sometimes add a tad boron and zinc to give them great taste! Give them ample drainage and 24” deep watering.

Garlic is in the genes, I mean, the lily family, related to chives and onions. So pretty! Did you know roses make more pungent perfume, and more perfume, when interplanted with garlic and onions?! Tuck some garlic in among your other flowers and veggies, but NOT with your legumes! Like onions, garlic stunts peas and beans.

Planting in the November/December will produce bigger cloves, but you can also plant garlic in the early spring – who can resist more fresh garlic?! Gilroy CA, 30 miles south of San Jose, just up the road from Santa Barbara, is called The Garlic Capital of the World! Gilroy’s Christopher Ranch was, and remains, the largest shipper of garlic in the world! Take note that the 2012 Gilroy Garlic Festival will be July 27, 28, and 29th! So their prime festival garlic roses had to be growing all winter and spring! Count that backwards 7 months, and you have a Dec planting! That means they have more daylight growing time after Winter Solstice as the days lengthen, and more growing time during warmer months! Makes sense, yes?! Garlic takes time – a long growing season and plenty of sun. Be warned that overcast coastal weather may not go well with your garlic aspirations. Also, pause, do you want to tie up that sunny land that long for such a small return? Less insects, no vampires? Ok, read on. Some traditionally plant, not in late October, early November, but on Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, for harvest on the longest day of the year, Summer Solstice, or in July! Your garlic will grow slowly all ‘winter,’ making huge bulbs! It likes the cooler moist weather, and freezes are good for it! You just have to be willing to feed them fat, and wait for them!

Here in SoCal, why not plant some in all the fall months?! That’s three rounds, Oct, Nov, Dec! See what works best in your microniche. If some fail, you will have others!

The garlic most of us are familiar with, commonly found in our grocery stores, are the soft-necked varieties, Artichoke and Silverskin, grown in milder climates with longer days.

California Early and California Late varieties need cold exposure of around 6 weeks below an average of about 40F for proper bulbing and clove development. It is the classic, white skinned ‘artichoke garlic’ of the supermarkets. Continental garlic is more of a generic term covering various white or purple striped hard neck types adapted to more Mediterranean growing conditions. That’s us.

Garlic needs choice generously amended nutritious soil, to be watered deeply, 24”, in fact! Garlic World, at Gilroy CA, says garlic needs twice as much fertilizer as other veggies! And they need feeding during growing. Visualize those hungry bulbs underground. Heavy soil restricts their growth, so you want rich, loose – not water-logged, fertile! When you drive through garlic growing country you can SMELL them! That’s how alive they need to be!

The bigger the seed/clove, the bigger and healthier your plant will become, so plant the huge cloves, reserve the smaller ones for eating and seasoning! Divide them just before planting. Plant pointy end up, 2” deep, 4” apart. Some people plant them 6” deep, others plant them just under the surface. I’ve had them grow both ways, but to keep the bulbs moist and happy, it makes sense to give them at least that 2” depth.

When the tops start to fall over, stop watering, let the smelly little guys dry a week or two, still in the ground. Clever harvesting means to carefully loosen the soil with a spade fork, and not bruise the bulb when you remove it. Let it dry some more in a shady airy place 2 to 3 weeks.

The Green Bean Connection started as correspondence for our SoCal Santa Barbara CA USA, Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden. All three of Santa Barbara city community gardens are very coastal. During late spring/summer we are in a fog belt/marine layer area most years, locally referred to as the May grays, June glooms and August fogusts. Keep that in mind compared to the microclimate niche where your veggie garden is. Bless you for being such a wonderful Earth Steward!

Mesa Harmony Garden could use your VOTE!

They are in line for a $10,000 award from RainBird, to install water wise systems in their 3-phase Food Forest installation! It’s an awesome project in Santa Barbara CA, turning unused land into a model garden, to produce food for the Food Bank – the highest % of that goes to seniors and kids. You can vote every day if you are willing, and it is sure appreciated! http://www.iuowawards.com/Projects.aspx#search Blessings!

At this time of year, plant from transplants. Or. Put in some from transplants at the same time as you put in some seeds. That is equivalent to about a 6 week succession planting pattern. Now through February, plant peas every month for continuous crop.

Inoculate your seeds if you haven’t grown peas there for the last 3 years. If you had an area where peas grew well last year, grab some handfuls of that soil and put it where you are planting this year! Rhizobia makes for abundant production. Just sprinkle it on the seeds when you plant! At Island Seed & Feed, one T of inoculant for 6 LBS of pea seeds is only $2! It’s where the bulk seeds are.

No manure, or very lightly, for peas, they make their own N (Nitrogen). That’s what legumes do!

Peas germinate well at 40 to 75 degrees F, but the colder, the slower. Pre-sprouting is fair, in fact, makes sense! Sprouted seed will grow in soils too cool for germination. YES! Don’t you love it?! Easy peasy has true meaning here. Wet a paper towel on a plate, arrange your seeds on one half of the towel, not touching each other, fold the other half over. Put them in a zip plastic bag, seal. Put on a spot that maintains about 70 degrees. Check those pups daily, add a wee bit of water, spray the paper towel, if needed. Your peas will sprout in 4 or 5 days! Soon as they sprout, put them carefully into the garden, right below the soil level. Gently firm the soil so they have good contact. If any fail, start another round to fill the gaps.

Space your pea babies about 2 inches apart. If you are putting in seeds, put them in about an inch apart, then thin when they are of a likely height that looks like their survival is assured.

Birds? If those walk-abouts are a bother, get some of that garden netting, or lay or prop those narrow patterned plastic plant flats over them. When you aren’t using the netting on your peas, in spring & summer use it to cover your strawberries.

Water. They like it. Every day until seeds are germinated, then once a week deeply.

Now we are back to the trellis. When your plants are 1 foot to 1 ½ feet high, start weaving twine through/around them to secure them against winds and rain-heavy weight. Those cute little tendrils just aren’t enough to hold them. Before wind, rains, are predicted, check everybody to be sure all is secure.

Stinky Onions?! You bet! Onions are sensitive to temperature and day length, photothermoperiodic! Whew! They start bulbing only after enough daylight for a certain number of days. To avoid bolting, in SoCal we need to plant seeds of short day onions in fall, or intermediate varieties in late winter. Most sets are long-day types and won’t work. Plant Grano, Granex, & Crystal Wax seeds in the ground Nov 1, today, to Nov 10, or bare root in January. Granex stores a little better, all of them are sweet like Vidalia and Maui. If you miss this window, plant intermediate onions in Feb. Onion seeds sprout very easily!

Garlic is so easy – separate the cloves, plant in full sun, about 1 to 2 inches deep in rich humusy soil, points up, 4 inches apart. That’s it! Water and wait, water and wait….

Strawberries Anytime! But which kind? There are 3 types of strawberries. Deciding on whether to plant June Bearing, Everbearing, or Day Neutral strawberries depends on your available space, size of preferred strawberries and how much work you want to put into the strawberries.

Everbearing (spring, summer, fall) and Day Neutral (unaffected by day length and will fruit whenever temperatures are high enough to maintain growth) are sweet and petite. They will not need much space and both are great for plant hangers. If you choose to plant them in the garden, be prepared to spend time weeding and fertilizing the plants. Everbearing: ♦ Sequoia, medium, heavy producer Day Neutral/Everbearing: ♦ Seascape, large

June Bearing, mid June, strawberries produce a nice, large and sweet berry. Because they only produce for 2 to 3 weeks, there is not so much work to take care of them. You do, however, need space because of the runners. They are classified into early, mid-season and late varieties. ♦ Chandler, large, high yield, large quantities of small fruit later in season ♦ Short day, Camarosa is large. It can be picked when fully red, and still have a long shelf life. This variety represents almost half of California’s current commercial acreage. ♦ Short day, Oso Grande is a firm, large berry, with a steadier production period than Chandler.

Do not plant strawberries where tomatoes, potatoes, peppers or eggplant have been grown in the past four years, because these crops carry the root rot fungus Verticillium which also attacks strawberries

Commercial growers replace their plants each year. FOR THE BIGGEST AND MOST ABUNDANT STRAWBERRIES, REPLACE PLANTS EACH YEAR…